“Our elders,” said Tom Goldtooth, executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, “told us to focus on praying for the federal agencies and the US government and North Dakota to hear what we were doing and saying: we have to protect the sacredness of the water.” (Photo: Sarah van Gelder)

Is this the turning point for the Dakota Access Pipeline? Word spread through the camp on Friday of a discussion between the Army Corps of Engineers and the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe that could mean a breakthrough.

“This proves that our prayers are really strong from the Oceti Sakowin camp,” Tom Goldtooth, executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network told me. “Our elders told us to focus on praying for the federal agencies and the US government and North Dakota to hear what we were doing and saying: we have to protect the sacredness of the water.”

According to reports from the Indigenous Environmental Network, Colonel John W. Henderson of the Corps promised the Standing Rock Sioux tribe that no permit would be issued to drill the Dakota Access Pipeline under the Missouri River until 30 days after construction stops. After that, there will be a comment period adequate to allow the tribes full consultation. This could delay pipeline construction under the river by 45 days to three months.

Even more good news for pipeline opponents. President Obama earlier this week commented that his administration would be looking at rerouting the pipeline. A new route would require a new environmental assessment, and this time, the tribes, and others, will insist on a full environmental impact statement – not the questionable environmental assessment used by the Army Corps when it issued the first permit.